Internet-connectable devices are ubiquitous in today's society. This is evidenced by the widespread use of personal electronic user devices, such as smartphones. In part, this is due to advancements in mobile network infrastructure, service offerings from multiple mobile network operators that give greater value to subscribers, reduced device manufacturing costs, and the fact that today's mobile devices can serve many functions beyond voice communication. For example, certain mobile devices may function as a mobile phone, a video camera, a portable media player, a Global Positioning System (GPS) device, and/or an internet client with email and web browsing capabilities. Certain mobile devices may also provide proprietary and/or third-party software applications that offer various capabilities including, for example, games and social networking. Such devices may also be used to conduct transactions such as, for example, commercial transactions. Other internet-connectable devices may provide the same or similar functions and capabilities due to similar advancements and offerings.
Advertisers have responded to the influx of powerful and intelligent Internet-connected devices by increasingly marketing products and services via mobile advertising. Mobile advertising is a rapidly growing sector providing advertisers with the opportunity to connect with potential consumers via consumers' Internet-connectable devices, rather than, or in addition to, traditional media such as radio or television. Mobile advertising includes many channels through which consumers can be reached. These channels include, but are not limited to, web-browser clients, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), games, videos, and software applications. Each mobile advertisement can link to additional content, channels, software applications or, in some instances, complementing media.
Internet-connectable devices are ideal for targeted advertisements due to the fact that an Internet-connectable device is often associated with only one unique user. Moreover, many Internet-connectable devices give users the ability to be highly engaged with the content available thereon, including advertisements. Therefore, Internet-connectable devices can help deliver excellent advertisement campaign effectiveness and response levels compared to other media; however, to be most effective, advertisements must be relevant to the user of the Internet-connectable device. For example, people without children are unlikely to be interested in advertisements for diapers. Thus, to provide relevant advertisements, advertisers may require some information about the user to help identify unique interests and attributes of the user.
Typically, to determine a relevant advertisement for a user of an Internet-connectable device, device-specific data can be communicated from the Internet-connectable device to a publisher server in the form of, for example, metadata. This, in turn, may be passed on to an advertising server or other server for advertisement analysis and decision-making. In addition to the device-specific parameters, a publisher server may store additional information useful in determining a relevant advertisement for a user including, for example, profile data, which may comprise anonymous unique user attributes such as gender, location, age, other demographic characteristics, user affinities, interests, user and/or device history and characteristics, purchase intent, etc.